Why Wikileaks is vital today. Also gives links to major leaks we can thank Wiki for & sums up points made by WikiLeaks' Editor Julian Assange, regarding the increasingly aggressive war being waged against WikiLeaks by numerous govt agencies, inc Pentagon

Folks, if this isn't a TESTIMONIAL to the worthiness of WikiLeaks . . . I don't know what IS!

"All of this has made WikiLeaks an increasingly hated target of numerous government and economic elites around the world, including the U.S. Government. As The New York Times put it last week: "To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret." In 2008, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center prepared a secret report -- obtained and posted by WikiLeaks -- devoted to this website and detailing, in a section entitled "Is it Free Speech or Illegal Speech?", ways it would seek to destroy the organization. It discusses the possibility that, for some governments, not merely contributing to WikiLeaks, but "even accessing the website itself is a crime..."

Saturday April 3, 2010, 6:44 pm
As long as FAUX News is allowed to spread LIES & incite violence, under the guise of Free Speech - then how is WikiLeaks "worse" in that it spreads Truth?! If WikiLeaks is That Feared & Hated, then it's Working!!!

Saturday April 3, 2010, 7:47 pm
Wikileaks and any attempt to expose secret government information to the light of day is of inestimable importance to the future of any possibility that the dream of democracy will one day come true. The CIA is a propaganda organzation that also assumes it is legal to carry out assassinations and other heinous crimes and has caused governments to rise and fall worldwide. Truth is not part of its agenda. If Wikileaks has the means to find information about this dark brotherhood then let us all be thankful. An Australian at the head of Wikileaks? It doesn't surprise me. I was taught at university about the evidence linking the CIA with the manipulation of the Australian Parliamentary system and other means leading to the fall of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who took us out of the Vietnam War. Beware! Germany and any other European State that does not bow to the whim of the American superpower. Thank you Just. I am thrilled to know this organization exists and I will pray and send powerful energy for its survival. They have ruthless opponents.

This site is extremely informative regarding First Amendment rights:
The First Amendment -- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
First Amendment Center

Further reading of it will explain some of the ever-evolving intricacies of interpretting the rights. I found this basic overview to be of interest:

"In the United States, the government may not prevent the publication of a newspaper, even when there is reason to believe that it is about to reveal information that will endanger our national security. By the same token, the government cannot:

* Pass a law that requires newspapers to publish information against their will.
* Impose criminal penalties, or civil damages, on the publication of truthful information about a matter of public concern or even on the dissemination of false and damaging information about a public person except in rare instances.
* Impose taxes on the press that it does not levy on other businesses. Compel journalists to reveal, in most circumstances, the identities of their sources.
* Prohibit the press from attending judicial proceedings and thereafter informing the public about them."

Saturday April 3, 2010, 9:22 pm
"the government CANNOT: * Pass a law that requires newspapers to publish information Against Their Will. * Impose criminal penalties, or civil damages, on the publication of truthful information about a matter of public concern or even on the Dissemination of False and Damaging information about a public person except in rare instances."
LOL! That explains FAUX still having a license..;)

"The twentieth century also saw the U.S. Supreme Court strengthen the doctrine of no prior restraint. In near v. minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S. Ct. 625, 75 L. Ed. 1357 (1931), the Court ruled that there is a constitutional presumption against prior restraint that may not be overcome unless the government can demonstrate that censorship is necessary to prevent a "clear and present danger" of a national security breach. In new york times v. united states 403 U.S. 713, 91 S. Ct. 2140, 29 L. Ed. 2d 822(1971), the Court applied this presumption against the U.S. Department of justice, which had sought an injunction to prevent the publication of classified material that would reveal the government's secrecy and deception behind the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. If this classified material, also known as the Pentagon Papers, had threatened U.S. troops by disclosing their location or movement, the Court said, publication would not have been permitted."

Sunday April 4, 2010, 5:09 am
Thank you Peasant Di, the more people who know about Wikileaks and use it, the more they will understand how the wealthy and powerful secretly influence and often control our world and our lives.

Sunday April 4, 2010, 6:16 am
Well I do hope that the countries of the EU WILL pull out. Then maybe Australia might pull out the rest of the Australians or it might happen the other way. More Australians being sent in. Ohhh Geeez I hope not the latter. I do wish the countries would think of their own citizens first of all. It's about time I have a talk with someone in The Netherlands. And see what's really happening there! I'll keep you informed of course but I can't call until next Saturday and there's a 10hr time difference now. I haven't read every comment once again as it's way pat bedtime and I want to get my messages done tonight but I read enough. I just hope I understood it all correctly as I know from others that the Dutch wanted to go home! Sorry can't tell source but I'm sure you can guess!!!.

Sunday April 4, 2010, 6:19 am
Noted.Thanks Carol for drawing my attention to this valuable post by Peasant. I actually wonder if USA is turning to be a third world non democratic state without freedom of information and freedom of speech.

Sunday April 4, 2010, 11:41 am
Any unclassified information which is published is fair game. The publishing of classified material, however, should be a punishable offense. Whether we like it or not, some (not all, of course) information is classified for very sound reasons having to do with national security. And it isn't up to some outside group to try to decide which is which.

Sunday April 4, 2010, 3:52 pm
They're no "protecting National Security" at all; they're protecting their own sorry asses! These are crimes, no question, and three should be some agency within the government that has jurisdiction when a officials and government agencies are using government resources to commit crimes. The problem is that any such agencies, the Congress for instance, are themselves so corrupt they don't dare do their actual jobs for fear of reprisals. The only way this corrupt government can continue to function as it has been - mostly illegally, corrupt through and through - is to destroy any and all information on their illegal activities if they can and to destroy the ones leaking the information. If this gets too bad, they may "have no choice" other than to find or make a National Emergency and crack down with a declaration of martial law. Seriously, if we were somehow to try and sentence every individual and entity that is and has been corrupt and involved in illegal activities, we'd likely not have a government left!

Monday April 5, 2010, 2:23 am
Yes, there's nothing like bright, hot sunshine to make the cockroaches run. We own our government, lock, stock and barrel (so to speak). It's up to US to drag all the agencies and operations into the white hot sunlight and subject each and every aspect to great and constant scrutiny. We don't dare leave our future in the hands of lobbyists and politicians. Eternal Vigilance is the price we pay for good government and it's entirely worth the work when we get good government that works well (efficiently and effectively) for all of us.

Monday April 5, 2010, 3:23 am
I am just overwhelmed by the response this article has received from you, fellow C2 members, and thank Carole for fwding it -- I didn't even know she'd done so.

When I discovered that Wikileaks had announced that they were going to release --on April 5 at the National Press Club-- a video that reveals what they call a Pentagon “cover-up” of an incident in which numerous civilians and journalists were murdered in an airstrike under the command of Gen. David Petraeus, AND that their members had recently been tailed by individuals under State Department diplomatic immunity, and that “one related person was DETAINED for 22 hours” while authorities SEIZED computer equipment, I thought WOW! People should know about this, if they don't already!!

This was really big news for me, but doing a C2 check, I saw that two C2 members had already posted stories on this WITHOUT attracting much attention at all --CURSES!!
Would it be worth posting on a subject that no one seemed to be interested in??
I guess I'm stubborn, 'cause I started looking for a different story on the same theme and I found Glenn Greenwald's brilliant article.

Greenwald points out that the US is joining some horrible govts in their crackdown on Wikileaks: 'As the Pentagon report put it: "the governments of China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam and Zimbabwe" have all sought to block access to or otherwise impede the operations of WikiLeaks, and the U.S. Government now joins that illustrious list of transparency-loving countries in targeting them.' How shamefull that we Americans should be included in a sort of flagship anti-democratic group!

1) The Pentagon assessed the danger WikiLeaks.org posed to the Army in a report marked “unauthorized disclosure subject to criminal sanctions.” It concluded that “WikiLeaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC and INFOSEC threat to the U.S. Army” — or, in plain English, a threat to Army operations and information. Lt. Col. Lee Packnett, an Army spokesman, confirmed that the report was real.

2) WikiLeaks, which won Amnesty International’s new media award in 2009, almost closed this year because it was broke and still operates at less than its full capacity. It relies on donations from humans rights groups, journalists, technology buffs and individuals, and Mr. Assange said it had raised just two-thirds of the $600,000 needed for its budget this year and thus was not publishing everything it had.

3) ...in 2008, access to the Web site (a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret) in the United States was cut off by court order after Bank Julius Baer, a Swiss financial institution, sued it for publishing documents implicating Baer in money laundering, grand larceny and tax evasion (facts cited in the US Army report).
Access was restored after two weeks, when the bank dropped its case.

4) "WikiLeaks, true to its mission to publish materials that expose secrets of all kinds, published the 2008 Pentagon report about itself" & the Times provides the link to Wikileaks, where ---scrolling down to the March 25 (2010) entry--- you can read "U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks, 18 Mar 2008" (this title is a link to the document), followed by this summary:

This document is a classified (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks. ``The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to WikiLeaks.org cannot be ruled out''. It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses ``trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whistleblowers'', the report recommends ``The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the WikiLeaks.org Web site''. [As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks' source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective]. As an odd justification for the plan, the report claims that:

``Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the WikiLeaks.org website''.

The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by WikiLeaks---U.S. equipment expenditure in Iraq, probable U.S. violations of the Chemical Warfare Convention Treaty in Iraq, the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah and human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay.

Monday April 5, 2010, 3:34 am
Wikileaks is doing great good, particularly in Iceland, if you got to the end of Greenwald's piece. For once, their revelations are drawing government SUPPORT, though, and that's a very good sign:

WikiLeaks editors, including Assagne, have spent substantial time of late in Iceland because there is a pending bill in that country's Parliament that would provide meaningful whistle blower protection for what they do, far greater than exists anywhere else. Why is Iceland a leading candidate to do that? Because, last year, that nation suffered full-scale economic collapse. It was then revealed that numerous nefarious causes (corrupt loans, off-shore transactions, concealed warning signs) were hidden completely from the public and even from policy-makers, preventing detection and avoidance. Worse, most of Iceland's institutions -- from its media to its legislative and regulatory bodies -- completely failed to penetrate this wall of secrecy, allowing this corruption to fester until it brought about full-scale financial ruin. As a result, Iceland has become very receptive to the fact that the type of investigative exposure provided by WikiLeaks is a vital national good, and there is real political will to provide it with substantial protections.

If any of us are in a position to help Wikileaks financially, we should. As Greenwald puts it:

"Aside from the handful of organizations (the ACLU, the NYT) with the resources and will to engage in protracted FOIA litigations against the government, one of the last avenues to uncover government and other elite secrets are whistle blowers and organizations that enable them. WikiLeaks is one of the world's most effective such groups"

Here is one of those previous posts that went almost unnoticed:

Wikileaks detained for video of Afghan civilian massacre On April 5th, Wikileaks plans to make public a decrypted video showing an US airstrike that murdered 97 Afghani civilians and journalists. The State Department/CIA has been tailing and detaining Wikileaks personnel.Computers have been seized.

Monday April 5, 2010, 11:27 am
Wow. What an eye opener. I didn't know Wikileaks even existed. Thank you so much, Peasant, for finding this story and thanks Carole for forwarding it to me. I'm still reeling.....so many great links to explore!

Tuesday April 6, 2010, 4:26 am
Wikileaks HAS released the video & Carole has posted the Information Clearing House article on it, which includes two videos: the classified US military video leaked as announced AND an Aljazeera segment where Wikileaks editor Julian Assange is interviewed, with analysis of the video.

What is particularly hateful is the recorded conversation between the two military guys carrying out the airstrike against people they can actually see, which Wikileaks is kind enough to provide in subtitles, so that we cannot help but be amazed and sickened by the inhuman cruelty behind the murders, since the perpetrators of the airstrike sound as though they are having fun 'outing' people, as though they were playing a video game, which Wikileaks Editor Julian Assange points out in the Al-Jazeera interview video.

Comparing the playful tone & callous, jestful content of the helicopter massacre perpetrators with the military's justification gives a striking, frightening example of the dichotomy between the mentality of men given life&death power over the lives of ordinary people and the organization's view of the same event: "U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement"."

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack (2007-- they had never received a satisfactory answer as to why their personnel had been killed !). The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

I watched a brief version on Aljazeera news last night and there was an interview with the brother of one of the Reuter's journalists killed. The brother pointed out how the camera which his brother was carrying could not possibly be mistaken for the arm the helicopter airstrikers claim to have seen and which has been used to justify the whole 'incident.' The brother knows the measurements of the arm purported to have been seen and convincingly explains how the camera his brother is holding is just too small.

What a tragedy for the families of these innocent people! What a revelation of misconduct & shameful cover-up by US military!

Tuesday April 6, 2010, 3:25 pm
I have avoided any thread that calls our soldiers murderers. They are not murderers. They are put into a terrible situation where they must kill or be killed. The situations are horrendous. They do not know who the enemy is. It can be a "pregnant" woman wearing a bomb, it can be a child wearing a bomb, it can be a car, a motorcycle, a truck, loaded with bombs, and that is besides the roadside bombs. Face it, these are kids over there fighting a war for adults. They are afraid, scared half to death, lonely, homesick, and jump at the slightest noise. They try to protect each other the best they can, and some have even died for another soldier, thereby saving that life. So how is it okay to call them murderers? It is dispicable to label our soldiers as murderers. It is not only offensive, it is treasonous to call them such awful names. I have family members who have been in every war since this country began. I have lost a son-in-law in Iraq; he was no murderer. I have 2 nephews who lost limbs in Iraq; they were not murderers. Our soldiers are the finest our country has; but sent them off to fight battles they should not be involved in. To label them as murderers only makes them look bad to the rest of the world. Is that the intent of the authors? I've been puzzling over that. Until you have walked in their boots, carried their 120# packs, eaten crap for months and years at a time, shot at daily over and over and don't know where to return fire because the enemy is not wearing a uniform; you just have no right to pass judgment on our soldiers. They have enough to struggle with, without having to struggle with their own people. The ones who should be backing them up. There are very few if any who would kill an innocent civilian if at all possible to avoid it. The self-righteous ones making these accusations need to go join the military, live the life of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and let's see how you fare over there. How much trauma will you physically and mentally endure for the rest of your lives because you had to go and fight a war caused by an idiot for a President, who started both wars in the first place? War is nasty business, and there is no way to fight a nice, clean, polite war. People will die. How about getting off our duffs and get out there and try putting a stop to the wars? I've been fighting them since they began. I have a 23-year-old granddaughter, a 2Lt, not far outside Baghdad right now. She got there 10 days ago. Do you think I sleep well at night knowing she is in so much danger? Did you see the news just the other day about the bombings outside of Baghdad? Can you imagine what I thought at the moment I heard of that? As usual, the Recruiters fed her a line of baloney that she would not end up in the wars. I had tried to stop her from joining the army, but she already signed up when I heard about it. Her dad retired from the Navy and is very proud of her. I am very proud of her too, but also living with dread over where she is. How do you think it makes the parents and grandparents feel when some self-righteous morons call them murderers? Face it, it is a war, whether we like it or not, and it will not end until we get involved and make it end. Calling our kids murderers solves nothing, but makes the people making the remarks look like complete jack-asses.

Tuesday April 6, 2010, 4:02 pm
Being a journalist in a time when governments are breaking their own and everyone else's laws is a potentially terminal condition. Remember during "Shock and Awe" A US tank, after a lot of journalists told the military where they were staying so the US would know not to fire on them, not only was the motel they were in fired on by a tank, the crew of which claimed a)they didn't know journalists were there, and b) the were taking rifle fire from the floor they targeted, which happened to be exactly where al Jazeera's crew was. Al Jazeera's studio was also "mistakenly" bombed not much later.

It blows me away that only just now are we beginning to see article titles that come out to "Pentagon may be propagandizing US citizens." All it has ever taken is a comparison between stories shown in the US and those shown in other countries. Bloggers have been aware of this - and screaming about it - since Bush literally took the office of President.

The murderers are the government that lied and continues to lie to get and keep our troops there, that used the most advanced psyops available, and probably drugs as well, to condition them, and damn them, that abandons them once they're home and damaged. What is happening over there IS murder - and war, one that WE started and one that WE continue, and it's solely to steal resources and control of those resources for the super-rich and to finish destroying the American economy. And, I suspect, to remove the youth and energy from as many of our young people as possible so they won't have them to deal with if and when they decide to make this a full-on dictatorship.

Thursday April 8, 2010, 8:34 am
Barbara, I have just read your comment.
You say, "Face it, these are kids over there fighting a war for adults. They are afraid, scared half to death, lonely, homesick, and jump at the slightest noise. They try to protect each other the best they can, and some have even died for another soldier, thereby saving that life. So how is it okay to call them murderers? "

I would like to know if you have seen the video ( available here: http://www.care2.com/news/member/497847928/1448933 )...

because what you say may be true in SOME situations, involving SOME soldiers, but the ones whose dialogue was recorded with the video are not your poor, lonely, frightened, young innocents: go watch the video (long & short versions, abridged & unabridged verions) & LISTEN to them !! They have all the detatchment and jestful tone of kids playing a video game ---- except those are REAL people ---brothers, husbands, fathers, sons --- that they are 'outing' with playful glee!! It is a monstruousity. Then listen to the commentary of the brother of one of the Iraqi journalists murdered during this 'incident, ' on Al-Jazeera, when he says that the camera his brother is holding couldn't possibly be mistaken for the arm the helicopter striker claims it was & US military so far backs him up on!

And have you seen how a van pulls up and a few people emerge to try to rescue the victims of this massacre? They, too, as well as their van, are pulverized by whatever dad-&-mom's-little-sweetheart is pulling the trigger in the helicopter. It is clear in the video that the newcomers are trying to pull the wounded to the van, to take them to safety, to hospitals, but mama's little dear is delighted to pulverize the van, and the helpers trying to pull the wounded away. At no time whatsoever do these helpers manifest any threatening attitude towards the helicopter.

If you view the video, you'll see that the helicopter dominated the situation, was in no way threatened, was not being attacked, no one was shooting at it or any other US military (there aren't any!!)
Take a look and see what 'the poor kids' are capable of -- killing 11 innocent people, including two journalists who worked for Reuters, and two children. (Reuters had been trying since 2007 to find out how & why their journalists had been killed, but in vain --- the military wouldn't tell them or release the pertinent documents.)

Then perhaps you can eat your 'self-righteous morons' which by the way is insulting & against the rules of this site. If you like the military so much, you must respect rules and regulations, so stop insulting people who had the courage to watch the video and draw the inevitable, obvious conclusions.

Thursday April 8, 2010, 5:00 pm
wolf weeps, I too got out of the medical profession because the stress of being in it and the daily exposure of the totall unfairness ... it finally took a toll on my health... the whole thing is corrupt... our gov't and our medical system... the big pharma is the worst... all of it... =(

Monday April 12, 2010, 1:59 am
US military personnel may be brainwashed -perhaps drugged; may be frightened & lonely, may be sacrificing their lives to save their comrades, may be terribly damaged by their experiences, often committing suicide & often requiring therapy on return from Iraq or Afghanistan, but I can find none of these extenuating circumstances nor any justification whatsoever for those who so brutally, cruelly & sadistically caused the deaths of detainees at Afghanistan's Bagram Prison, whose eventual guilt was far from being established; in fact, the interrogators & guardians who participated in massacring young Afghans knew that two at least were innocent & continued sadistic interrogations that reduced their legs to pulp: yes, the coroner said that had they survived, both men would have had to have their legs amputated. Where are you, Barbara? Come & read this NYTimes investigative report: Bagram Prison, North of Kabul: NYTimes VIDEO Investigation Into Beating/Torture Homicides Of Young Afghans, Impunity For Murderers

Monday April 12, 2010, 8:03 am
This story just breaks my heart: the pain of the old man; the callousness of giving sheep / the insult of receiving sheep for the loss of 4 grown children & a grandchild, the essential part of his whole family, like ripping out his heart...

The extreme paradox of our actions in the Muslim world is now well-documented: namely, the very policies justified in the name of fighting Terrorism (invasions, occupations, bombings, lawless detentions, etc.) are the precise ones that most inflame and exacerbate that threat. With the news this morning that "American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near the southern [Afghan] city of Kandahar on Monday morning, killing as many as five civilians and wounding 18" -- a report which unsurprisingly "infuriated Kandahar leaders" and triggered anti-American demonstrations -- there's one small though revealing vignette from last week I wanted to highlight.

As I wrote about last week, American troops in mid-February entered a village in the Eastern Afghan province of Paktia, killed five civilians (a male government official, his brother, and three female relatives, including two pregnant women and a teenager) and then lied about what happened. ABC News this week described the efforts of U.S. Special Forces to apologize to Haji Sharabuddin -- the 80-year-old patriarch of that family who lost two sons, two daughters and a granddaughter in the attack -- by offering him two sheep (a gesture of begging forgiveness in Pashtun custom), and the article included this:

Presenting sheep is such a powerful form of requesting forgiveness that the father is now obligated not to take revenge, even though he has told reporters he wanted to become a suicide bomber. . . . But the incident so inflamed the family, the father initially vowed to take revenge, "even if it breaks me into pieces."

"I have lost patience. I am obliged to revenge my martyrs," he told an ABC News cameraman on March 18. "I will destroy everything I have and will launch my own suicide attack. My heart is burning."

The ABC News article celebrates the fact that the sheep offering "will help defuse" lingering anger over the massacre (the U.S. military, following standard practice, previously paid the family $2,000 for each victim it killed). But the fact that this 80-year-old man was vowing to perpetrate a suicide attack on U.S. forces speaks volumes about the effects of our actions in that country (and had this man carried through on that threat, American media -- as always -- would undoubtedly have depicted it as some sort of senseless, irrational act of religious fanaticism underscoring yet again how primitive, violent, and full of baseless rage those radical Muslim Terrorists are and how vital it therefore is that we stay and defeat these Evil Enemies).

This is what has been happening over and over for a full decade now. How many new America-haters and suicide bombers did we create today with the story (accurate or not) of our bombarding that civilian bus with bullets? How many have been created by what Gen. McChrystal calls the "amazing number" of innocent people and families we've shot at Afghan checkpoints in the last nine months alone? Listen to the embittered anti-American rage of the brother of the 21-year-old Reuters photographer killed by the Apache helicopter in Baghdad after the brother (along with hundreds of millions of other Muslims) viewed the WikiLeaks video. Two weeks ago, horror over a deadly suicide attack in the Moscow subway system was quickly followed by the unsurprising revelation that the suicide bomber was the young widow of an insurgent killed by Russian forces three months ago, because suicide bombers tend to be what gets produced when foreign armies kill people's loved ones. WikiLeaks is now preparing to release graphic video of an American airstrike last year that killed close to 100 Afghan civilians, after which the U.S. vehemently (and falsely) insisted that it was Taliban fighters, not civilians, who were killed. How many suicide bombers did that incident create, and how many will be created when the video of what we did is broadcast around the world? " (there's more...)

Monday April 12, 2010, 8:09 am
Including, but not limited to, this UPDATE:
"The reason we know about the U.S. Special Forces' sheep sacrifice is because The Times of London's Jerome Starkey, who broke the story about what really happened in the Eastern Afghanistan civilian killing, was present at the scene and described it in detail, including the fact that the U.S. Vice-Admiral who offered the sheep, along with Afghan soldiers, wanted to bar the media from witnessing the event and refrained only when the family members insisted that they stay. In contrast to ABC 's sunny report that all is now forgiven, Starkey writes:

"When people come to your gate and ask forgiveness, according to Afghan law, it’s difficult to reject them," Haji Sharabuddin said later. "I am happy they came." But the family insists that it still wants justice. "I don’t care about the money," Haji Sharabuddin said. He believes the troops attacked after faulty intelligence from one of his enemies — a spy. He wants the Americans to face international justice and the spy handed to Afghan authorities and punished. "When they surrender the spy, then I will make a decision. Maybe I will forgive them," he said.

As more people victimized by such acts realize that we are a country that only Looks Forward and Not Backward, the rage left by such incidents seems likely to intensify "

The founder of the whistleblower website WikiLeaks has had his passport confiscated in his native Australia. Julian Assange says Australian officials told him his passport would be canceled because it looked worn. Last year WikiLeaks stoked a controversy in Australia after publishing a list of websites the Australian government had been preparing to blacklist even though the sites had no links to the stated reason of child pornography. And last month WikiLeaks drew international attention after releasing a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians in 2007.

Wednesday July 7, 2010, 12:52 pm
"U.S. Army Analyst Charged in Wikileaks Case"
From DN! Headlines for July 07, 2010:

A U.S. Army intelligence analyst has been charged in connection with the leaking of classified video and documents to the whistleblower website Wikileaks. Army Specialist Bradley Manning is accused of releasing video of a July 2007 attack in which US military gunships indiscriminately kill twelve Iraqis and wound several others, including two children. In addition Manning is also charged with passing on over fifty State Department cables. He faces up to fifty-two years in prison. Manning was detained while serving in Iraq in May after an acquaintance said he had taken responsibility for sending Wikileaks the video along with thousands of classified US government records. Manning hasn’t retained a civilian lawyer and is being represented by a military defense attorney. In an interview with Democracy Now! last month, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg urged support for Manning should he turn out to be Wikileaks’ source.

Daniel Ellsberg: "For forty years I’ve hoped that someone would put out information on the scale that I did, but in a more timely way than I did, before I chose to do it in my time. And Manning would be the first person in forty years to have done that, if it is true that he’s put out a great raft of cables, which he regards as criminal. And I give him—I’m very gratified, if that’s the case. And I hope he’s not the last."

Sunday August 22, 2010, 7:41 am
Ever heard the term "War is Hell" Stop blaming our soldiers for doing what they are ordered to do, get up off your butt and protest against war. Wars will not stop until we take to the streets and protest against them. As long as people blame the warrior for the war our Governments remain safe from blame.